


imagine being loved by me

by gingergenower



Series: doctor/mafia au [4]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blood and Violence, Dubious Morality, Emotional Hurt No Comfort, Gun Violence, Heavy Angst, I promise you now: in part 5 there's going to be a kind of HEA, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mafia!Magnus, doctor!alec
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-15
Updated: 2019-03-15
Packaged: 2019-11-18 12:53:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18121121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingergenower/pseuds/gingergenower
Summary: “I knew it would feel like this.”He wasn’t ignorant to it. He knew exactly what he was doing to himself when he asked for the lives of other people.(If I've missed a warning, please let me know. And please don't take the warnings lightly, this could be deeply triggering)





	imagine being loved by me

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from [talk ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCCtiK7KlSo) by hozier
> 
> please, PLEASE read the warnings. this is not a kind fic, ok?

 

The hospital cafeteria’s quiet. It’s the only place open, even catering on the bare minimum of staff, and all the visitors in today are with their families so the tinsel and cut out snowflakes dangling from the ceiling and tree are lost on the only people not with their families; a few nurses and the resident in the corner, alone. Alec.

He’s not hungry- forced to leave the ward by a pissed-off supervisor who apparently only learnt today Alec shrugs his lunch breaks off with a cup of coffee- but he’s not going to be allowed back in that room for another forty-five minutes at least. He was dragged to the office and ripped into about being reported and suspensions, pointing out if he ever made a mistake on the job because he was tired it would be children he was hurting, and he was allowed into paediatrics early because of his outstanding record and excellent references, but if he couldn’t even recognise his own limitations perhaps medicine wasn’t the right career for him.

Arms folded on the table, Alec exhales and cradles his head in them. Pretty much every member of staff in the hospital who’s heard of Alec knows what happened to Izzy, so the supervisor let him off with a warning, and Alec just had to nod and apologize for bringing his personal life to work.

It’s not like he can pretend it isn’t affecting him; he’s not sleeping, barely eating. He looks like hell.

He doesn’t immediately look up when he hears someone approach and sit opposite him, but they say nothing, and he’s just curious enough that he tilts his head and cracks open his eyes.

Magnus has a cardboard tray with two cups of takeaway coffee in and slides one across the table to Alec, taking the other for himself.

Alec sits up straight, blinking.

“Merry Christmas,” Magnus says, expression soft, and Alec stares at him.

“I thought you don’t do hospitals.”

“I do if they don’t ask me questions,” he says with a shrug. He offers Alec little packets of sugar and milk, but Alec holds a hand up in rejection and pulls his cup closer, holding it with both hands.

He doesn’t recognise the design on the takeout cup, but he wraps cool fingers around it, and it smells amazing (Izzy says he’s a snob, which is patently untrue; Alec will drink any and every type of liquid caffeine including the herbal tea crap Izzy hoards, but he prefers coffee). “Thank you,” he says, and Magnus smiles slightly.

“You’re welcome, Alexander.”

He’s the most casual Alec’s ever seen him- wearing a dark grey shirt and coat and navy scarf, entirely unremarkable- but every item is still tailored to him. His rings glint under the unforgiving yellow lights in the cafeteria, his eyeliner’s perfect. He’s still beautiful.

Alec feels unsteady; small. “I didn’t think you’d- come here.”

“I told you to get in touch if you needed me,” Magnus says gently, and Alec glances at his phone.

“I didn’t mean-”

“I know you didn’t.”

Gaze fixed on his cup, Alec bites his lip. “Don’t you have… things you should be doing? Today?”

“Nothing at this precise moment,” Magnus says carefully. “I have a few errands this afternoon, but they’re not urgent.”

“Don’t you have family?”

“I have a goddaughter,” Magnus says, sipping his drink, “but I don’t see her.”

Alec imagines a little girl no older than Caterina’s daughter, bright eyed and sweet- Magnus seems unaffected, but when his eyes flick to Alec’s he sees what’s been left unsaid; don’t. Don’t mention her again. Don’t ask.

Alec doesn’t drink his coffee, but Magnus sets down his own cup and leans forward, elbows resting on the table. Even his voice is muted. “How has today been?”

“Fine,” Alec says. He appreciates that Magnus is only trying to turn the conversation to a safer topic for the both of them, and does his best to meet him. “A little… chaotic. But in a good way.”

Small children aren’t supposed to be in a hospital at Christmas, but none of them linger on the thought. They’re distracted and excitable, presents and parents and siblings too much to keep quiet about, too much food and energy- the nurses set up an old wheel-in tv and stuck _Elf_ on, which helped crowd control for an hour and a half, and some of them had naps, but they’re always wrangling with a child for some reason or another.

“It’s like that most of the time, actually,” Alec adds.

“Paediatrics?”

“Yeah.”

Magnus smiles to himself. “Sounds like fun.”

Alec nods, but he’s watching Magnus’ hands, a little distracted. Nails painted neatly just like they were when Alec was cleaning up his split knuckles, they’re deep blue today. Even in trying not to be interesting he is, in the middle of the clinical white and pale blues of the cafeteria, as rich and intense as the brown of his eyes.

“How is Isabelle?”

“She’s ok.”

Alec didn’t tell Izzy the whole truth, in the end. He hardly told her anything; the day after she was attacked, he finally got her alone and he told her whatever Simon had said, she was safe, because he’d made sure of it. She pressed him, confused and concerned, but he didn’t want to say the rest of it, so he kissed her forehead and told her to sleep.

“If there’s anything I can do…” Magnus begins, and Alec tries to smile.

“I know. She’s staying uptown while she’s off work. I’m out of the apartment too much and Jace’s place is too small, and I think she just… needs mom.”

She has nightmares, sometimes. It’s hard. But, she’s going to therapy, and even through the exhaustion Alec sees the person who was voted ‘most likely to be a reality star’ at high school and went on to study forensic pathology.

Isabelle Lightwood isn’t going to give in, not to what other people think they see or thugs on the street or her own fear. She’s not going to let this ruin her.

It’s not the same for Alec.

The only person who even knows what happened- what he did, what he said- is Magnus. He’s the only person Alec can be honest with, the only person he _wants_ to be honest with, and it’s been six days since they last spoke. “I knew it would feel like this.”

He wasn’t ignorant to it. He knew exactly what he was doing to himself when he asked for the lives of other people.

Magnus lowers his cup to the table, his gaze serious as Alec swallows.

“But I don’t know how to live with it.”

He can get an IV in a squirming six-year-old, but he can’t bring himself to order takeout. He can wrangle an entire ward of under-tens on Christmas day on minimum staff, but he can only get out of his bed for Izzy on his days off. He can listen to his supervisor doubt the only thing he’s capable of doing and keep his cool and give the answers he knows he’s supposed to offer, but he can’t stand an hour break alone.

Magnus exhales long and slow before he speaks, clearly trying to find the right words. “I can’t tell you there’s… _absolution_ to be found, or any kind of solace in penance, but his death isn’t yours, Alexander. It’s mine.”

“I asked you to kill him-”

“As I recall,” Magnus says, peeling the plastic lid off on his cup casually, but when he discards it and looks back to Alec, he’s vicious with challenge. “You never did anything of the sort. You questioned letting the thugs that attacked your sister go, you wished pain upon the man who hurt Isabelle, but you never asked for anyone’s life.”

Alec- swallows, can’t even remember the conversation clearly, can’t remember what he said, but he remembers what he wanted. “That doesn’t mean-”

“The reason that man ordered that attack was because he wanted to test my resolve to keep Brooklyn. He wanted access to the docks to expand his business, but he’s already responsible for most of the people trafficked into this city and forced into slavery and prostitution for the last five years.”

Alec feels his voice in his throat, and he can’t say a word. The magnitude of horror, the scale of that suffering, isn’t communicated, but Alec isn’t sure he wants it to be.

“I have been… _waiting_ , for a reason to kill him,” Magnus says, hand gesturing impatience, eyes unseeing as he stares past Alec. “I’ve had to watch from across the river as he destroyed thousands of lives, unable to help because an offensive would incite all-out war with half of New York.”

Alec blinks, watching him, wordless.

“You feel responsibility for what happened but you don’t need to,” Magnus says meeting Alec’s gaze again, hand back around his cup, settling back into composure. “Should you have tried to save him, you wouldn’t have succeeded.”

There’s something untrue in that- should Alec have said the words ‘you owe me’, he’s almost certain he could ask anything of Magnus- but Magnus is so steady, Alec nods once.

Magnus’ expression changes slightly, muted warmth in his eyes, and he leans in as if about to speak but he’s distracted by his phone. Typing fast, he looks more concentrated than concerned, and he seems to forget who he’s talking to. “Excuse me, I need to answer this.”

“Everything ok?” Alec tries not to seem too curious and knows he’s failing, but Magnus nods.

“The… detective who made that evidence disappear,” Magnus says, quieter. “We do each other favours. I gave him an ‘anonymous’ tip where he might want to start looking for traffickers in this city now they’re not protected, but the FBI have just taken over his investigation, so he can go home.”

Magnus flicks upwards as if to scroll down and check something, then he pockets it again.

“To his family?”

“His daughter,” Magnus corrects softly. “His wife died six years ago.”

Alec realises his assumption that any deal Magnus had with a cop would be a hostile a one is a mistake; he knows too much, is too kind about it.

Magnus sees the adjustment Alec’s making, and elaborates. “When his wife died, the biological father of his daughter- who the detective raised from birth- came back and tried to claim custody of her. She was already sixteen, she didn’t want to go with him, and he only wanted custody to punish the detective for having the life he saw as being rightfully his, so I stepped in.”

The story’s too… specific. Too detailed. Too _similar_. Alec tries to keep any reaction out of his expression as Magnus continues to talk, pretending not to feel anything.

“Ever since, we’ve had a professional understanding. We help each other.”

Trying to seem curious about the wrong thing, Alec watches him for lies. “You don’t pay him?”

“He only gives me information when he has no other choice.”

“Like what?”

Magnus considers Alec, thoughtful, and then accedes. “Last month, they had someone in witness protection but they were killed before they could testify. The case against a contract killer crumbled and he walked, so the detective gave me his name.”

“You respect him.” Alec isn’t asking a question, but Magnus nods.

“He’s worthy of it.”

Six years ago, Jace had been on three dates with Clary and then fully expected never to hear from her again, but he bought his first suit to attend her mom’s funeral anyway. Alec helped him get a Windsor knot right, and he’d never seen Jace so solemn when he came back. The text from Clary the next day was unexpected, but not unwelcome.

He was there for all of Clary’s drama with her father showing back up, determined to rip her away from everything she’d ever known.

Magnus’ detective is Luke Garroway.

Alec wets his lips, sitting back, thinking. Luke’s one of the top in the force- and he’s a good man, he wouldn’t let himself be bullied or intimidated by someone in organised crime- and besides, Brooklyn’s one of the safest places in the state. The statistics in violent crime are so low it’s like they’re cheated, and Alec’s sat in front of the man who should be the very reason it shouldn’t be possible.

Lightly, an accusation disguised as an observation, Alec says, “you keep saving people.”

“And?”

“I want an explanation,” Alec says, leaning closer.

Magnus shakes his head. “Alexander-”

“You want me to be afraid of you but you’ve never given me reason to be.”

Hesitating, Magnus narrows his eyes as though suspicious of Alec. “I _executed_ someone the last time we saw each other, Alec.”

“Yeah, you did.”

Magnus told him he was safe. Alec still believes it.

Jaw clenched, Magnus exhales as if to temper himself, as if he’s seen exactly what he didn’t want to. He turns his cup in his hands, eyes fixed on it. “I was seventeen when I decided I didn’t want any of this.”

His eyes flick to Alec, and Alec leans closer, silently promising his focus, his quiet. Magnus looks away again.

“My father was good at what he did- he tortured people, he murdered and enjoyed it- but I wasn’t. I could only justify it when I couldn’t see what was happening, when I didn’t see people as _human_ , but once I did… you have to understand, my father was a possessive man. I knew if I left, I’d have to _run_.

“So, I plotted with a friend and bought a plane ticket and packed my bags. I had my own money, I had a place to go, I even wrote a letter to my father begging him not to try to find me. I just needed the right moment, and it appeared. My father left for Chicago, he wouldn’t even be in the city, it was… perfect.”

Magnus’ eyes are too blank, too composed.

“Too perfect. I was naïve. I was going to leave that night, and the friend who helped me texted, asking to meet at a different location. When I arrived I was met by my father.

“The worst part of it all is that he made me get in the back of a car, and all I could think was that he was going to kill me. I was being driven to my grave, if I was going to be lucky enough to have one, and I could do nothing about it. I didn’t say… a word, to him, I couldn’t give him my pain, I knew it’s what he’d want, but I _wanted_ to beg for my life, I wanted to tell him I’d earn forgiveness… but there was nothing I could’ve said to save myself. I knew it.

“We got out of the car somewhere out past New Jersey, in the middle of a national park, and my father pointed a gun at me, and told me to start digging.”

Alec presses the back of his hand to his mouth, trying not to throw up.

“Once it was deep enough, he let me stop, and I just… knelt next to it, looked away.” Magnus’ face twists in disgust. “I thought I knew what was coming, I thought I could at least… stop. I wanted it to stop and I was at least getting _that_ , I-”

Magnus blinks, and tears fall down his cheeks. Alec wants to reach out but it’s like Magnus doesn’t even really seem to know he’s still there, lost in that forest, out past New Jersey.

“But that’s when another car pulled up. They dragged my friend out and threw him down next to me. They’d already beaten him up, shot out one of his knees, he couldn’t even walk, and my father said I had a choice to make.

“He could kill both of us for betraying him. He was deeply disappointed in me, and he couldn’t imagine why his only son would want to abandon him, but if that’s what I wanted I could have it. Or… I could choose him. I could choose to go home with him, and he’d never speak of it again. To prove my loyalty, I just had to kill my friend.”

Alec can’t take his eyes off Magnus, can’t even breathe, because he knows what’s coming next and he’s not sure he can hear it.

“And he just- turned to me,” Magnus says, and Alec can see he’s back there, kneeling at the edge of a shallow grave, staring up at his father, side by side with the friend who wanted to save him. “The only begging he did was saying my name.”

Magnus lowers his head and closes his eyes.

“Magnus-”

“He knew he was going to die. He must have known, like me, the moment he saw my father, and he wasn’t begging for his life- he was begging for mine. He was begging me to kill him so I’d live, he was telling me to kill him quickly because he was going to die anyway and he didn’t want to have any more time to think about it.

“So I did it.”

Alec’s throat hurts, this is- unbearable, imagining the beautiful man in front of him at seventeen, covered in mud and his friend’s blood, still holding the gun that he murdered him with.

“The only thing my father gave me was leaving me to bury him. I could hold him one last time, I could make sure he wasn’t disturbed, I could… tell him I love him.” Magnus’ voice trembles, and when he meets Alec’s eye tears are still falling.

Alec stares back. He doesn’t know what to say. Seventeen- he should’ve been at high school, thinking about college applications. He wasn’t even old enough to be out of the wards Alec watches over.

Helpless to save Magnus from something that happened years ago, Alec can feel himself crying too, wiping his cheeks with his sleeve. “Magnus…”

“I should have died with him.” Magnus smiles, and it looks like agony. “I tried to, but the gun only had one bullet in it. At least that gave my father a laugh.”

Turning away, Alec feels like he can’t breathe. How could his father react to Magnus attempting suicide in front of him with _humour_ -?

Touching away the tears- aside from wet eyelashes, too-bright eyes- it’s like Magnus hasn’t been crying at all. He swallows, trying to compose himself again, and his makeup doesn’t so much as look smudged. “When he died, a few years later, he left me everything, and I thought I would finally leave.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I couldn’t,” Magnus says, helpless. “Someone needed to take over Brooklyn. If I didn’t there would be a fight for it, and so many more people would die than those my father had already killed. I _couldn’t_.”

Taking a moment to process that, Alec rubs his face, and he tries not to be angry. “But you’re doing what your father wanted, you’re still profiting off pain-”

“No, I don’t.” His voice soft, eyes hard, Magnus shakes his head, and Alec sees some decision in the set of his jaw. “I keep up the pretence of it enough to keep others away, to make them think I’m my father’s son, but I don’t- I don’t _need_ it anyway, I have some legitimate businesses to live off like _Pandemonium_ , but I accrue too much interest to even spend my father’s money.”

Alec blinks, and Magnus shrugs one shoulder, almost apathetic.

“I threaten suppliers and dealers to keep out of the borough, root out trafficking and money laundering, fund health clinics and women’s shelters so sex workers have somewhere to go, make sure anyone trafficked here end up in the right hands, just… all of it. Anything.”

Alec sits back, not even knowing how to react.

Magnus was raised on violence and exploitation. It’s not a history that can be undone; there’s no absolution or penance, and he knows that because he’s already tried. He’s still trying. He hasn’t stopped.

Reaching across the table, Alec takes Magnus’ hand. The moment between Magnus’ shock and panic is only a blink, and Alec keeps his grip gentle, his gaze sure. “You save everyone.”

“I can’t even save myself,” Magnus says, disbelieving, and Alec feels helpless it hurts so much.

“Magnus-”

“You can’t save me.”

“Your friend did.”

Magnus stares. “I _murdered_ him-”

“He loved you and your life was the last thing he could give you.” Drawing Magnus’ hand closer, holding it with both of his own, Alec can feel unshed tears in his eyes welling again. “ _Let_ him.”

For a few moments, Magnus does nothing. Then, jerking his hand away, he stands up and backs away from the table, not looking at Alec. As if deciding between arguing and running, Magnus seems completely overwhelmed, eyes wide, shaking, but Alec doesn’t make any move to follow.

“It’s-” Magnus starts, breathless, but he cuts himself off. “You-”

Alec waits, but Magnus doesn’t seem to know what to say, so Alec exhales, trying to steady himself. “I just- I’ll go.”

Shaking so hard Alec can visibly see it, Magnus closes his eyes like he’s expecting a physical blow.

Alec stands, and only hesitating when he’s a few steps away. “If- if you need me…”

“I have your number,” Magnus says, hoarse.

Alec nods. He walks away, dropping his half-empty cup in the recycle on the way out. Once he’s a few doors and corners away from the canteen, enough space between them that Alec thinks he can stop in an empty corridor, he does, touching his forehead against the cool wall.

He breathes, and breathes, and breathes.

Then, he tells himself he’s going force himself to eat something. He’s going to grab a nap, and then he’s going to go back on that ward and tell his supervisor he’s exactly where he should be.

He’s never been able to save everyone. He’s not going to stop trying to.

**Author's Note:**

> hopefully, part 5 won't take too long to write, but I can't guarantee it.


End file.
